The iconic baseball movie The Natural can be viewed as a piece of schmaltzy fluff, feel-good nostalgia. Critics of the movie point to its almost-cartoonishly simple villains and heroes as evidence of this.
It is true; many of the figures who inhabit this film are starkly good or evil. No question that The Judge is a black-hat, for example; he shuns the light of day. A "spider at the center of his web," he is the embodiment of the cardinal sin (or "deadly passion") of Avarice.
No debate either that Glenn Close plays a good girl, despite her unwed-motherhood. If there were any doubt, it is erased by the way the film garbs her in white and light. Not only is she Roy Hobb's redemption, she is also Madonna, the mother of his child.
Far more interesting are the ambiguous players, like Max Mercy, The Whammer, and Harriet Bird (the lady in black), and the redeemable characters of Bump Bailey, Memo Paris and Hobbs himself. It is in the development of these smaller sinners and weaker saints that The Natural transcends the cartoon.
Max Mercy (played by Robert Duvall) is a cynic, the embodiment of Doubt. Max is convinced that he is irredeemable—and therefore, so is everyone else. Doubt is a minor, venial sin, but it is just a breath away from the deadly sin of Despair. That Max has nearly reached Despair is evident in his counsel to Hobbs, and also from his before-the-event cartoons. He has no doubt that Hobbs will take the easy downward path, because Max himself would.
The Whammer (Joe Don Baker in a cameo), like Max (in whose company Hobbs meets the famed hitter), is a venial sinner. His hedonism is just this side of the deadly sin of Gluttony—not the relatively innocent lust for good food and wine, sex, and other such bodily pleasures, but the far more grave equation of pleasure with Good. In fact, The Whammer is rescued from stepping over the brink from venial to mortal sin by a small wound to his pride: the loss to young Hobbs in a casual three-pitch contest.
The sins of Harriet Bird (Barbara Hershey) seem obvious. The lady in black murdered several other athletes, and attempted to shoot Roy Hobbs. But beyond the murders, Harriet commits the cardinal sin of Envy. She wishes to possess the fame of the athlete by removing him from life. Only Harriet will know that Roy Hobbs might have been "the best that ever was." Her desire is obviously twisted and sick—but all Envy is sick and twisted. Harriet Bird slips that knowledge in under our guard.
Article comments
1 - Pacze Moj
I haven't seen The Natural, but this was still neat to read. Good analysis.
2 - Chris
Roy Hobbes is a failed hero. Harriet Bird is the worldly, educated, cultured academic to Roy's gargantuan neanderthal. Early in the story Harriet asks Roy to recognize his potential place in society, that is as a mythical being larger than the game and with the responsibility of such a hero; Roy's response of simply being the best there ever was limits him in Harriet's eyes to a money-loving, woman-loving, fame-loving dolt. She shoots him in order to save society another failed hero figure. The newspaper story at the beginning supports this.
Remember too that in the novel Roy does not hit a game-winning home run where the light stanchions burst into a pyrotechnical display; he strikes out to end the game. He thus becomes ordinary. This can be supported by his return to Iris and to his life before the shooting, before professional baseball.